Bay dials down the insensitivity that poisoned Bad Boys II, but that doesn't mean it's altogether absent. Unrepentant ogling of Sam's sidekick Mikaela (Megan Fox)—she's sexy, digs cars, and has a criminal record (the hot girl trifecta!)—is standard-issue for such a geeky popcorn flick. But there's no constructive reason to have American grunts criticize their Latino comrade for speaking Spanish, nor for positing African-Americans (both Bernie Mac and Anthony Anderson) as buffoonish clowns...

...It feels slower, more tamped down than the usual Bruckheimer assaults. The camera, or rather multiple cameras, are still shooting every which way, and the cutting sometimes registers as eye-blink fast, but not compulsively so. Mr. Bay allows himself to linger here and there, which explains the bloated, almost two-and-a-half-hour running time.

"Transformers" is electrified by Mr. Bay's faith in action for its own sake, which turns into a kind of jingoism. Adapting a toy from the Reagan administration, he also seems to draw on an earlier, more comforting era of patriotism, indulging Autobot leader Optimus Prime's hokey speechifying and illuminating his teens with "Morning in America" sunlight.